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Missing hunter found alive in Flat Tops

A 65-year-old hunter was found alive Monday, reportedly after falling into a ravine two days earlier in the Flat Tops outside New Castle.

The Garfield County Sheriff’s Department hadn’t released the man’s name as of late Monday afternoon, or the details of his disappearance.

But Eddie Piker, pastor of the New Hope Church near Silt, said the man who went missing is Dudley Blaylock of New Castle, a member of his congregation.

Piker said he’s been receiving updates from Blaylock’s neighbor, who said Blaylock had suffered a concussion and was taken to Grand River Hospital in Rifle.

Piker said Blaylock reportedly was doing pretty well, given what he had gone through.

Piker said Blaylock had been unconscious for two days. That information could not be independently verified Monday.

The Sheriff’s Department said a man from the Silt/New Castle area went hunting alone Saturday morning and failed to return to his companions in camp on Clark Ridge. An organized search began Sunday. On Monday, it involved search and rescue crews from several counties and a helicopter from the Colorado Army National Guard.

The search focused on heavy timber and rugged canyon land between Meadow Lake and Triangle Park in the Buford Road area.

Blaylock was the subject of an e-mail prayer chain at his church, and Piker expressed relief at his being found.

“Being missing that long, two or three days, chances are not good for somebody’s survival like that,” Piker said.

Meanwhile, a search for a missing fisherman who fell into the Colorado River in Rifle on Friday is no longer active, sheriff’s spokeswoman Tanny McGinnis said.

The man went missing when the boat he was in collided with an overpass pillar, throwing out all three of its passengers. Dogs, divers and an underwater camera all had been used in the search for him.